A Tribute — Joseph H. Lillard, Jr.
*This article first appeared in The American Homeopath Journal, Volume 22, 2016, and is reproduced with permission.
By Suzanne Smith, CCH
Homeopathy lost one of its strongest advocates when Joe Lillard died on May 27, 2016.
Joseph Harlan Lillard, Jr. was born in Washington, DC, on June 8, 1938. After receiving his Masters in Public Administration from American University, Joe worked in personnel management at a number of federal agencies including the Department of State, the Department of Treasury and the National Parks Service. Joe’s sense of fair play and integrity led him to specialize in equal employment opportunity issues. This was during the 1960s and early 1970s, and during his lunch hour, Joe could often be found attending rallies for Civil Rights and against the Vietnam War.
In the mid-1970s, Joe and a group of friends purchased 127 acres of pristine farmland two hours away in southern Morgan County, West Virginia. He soon moved there full-time and raised Christmas trees and sheep. During this time, Joe was introduced to homeopathy by a friend who gave him a remedy for back pain. It worked so well that he then tried a remedy on one of his goats who was suffering from an abscess. There was no turning back. Joe began his formal study of homeopathy in 1983 at the National Center for Homeopathy’s Summer School when it was still in Millersville, Pennsylvania. By 1986, Joe’s involvement with the NCH had expanded and he founded the NCH Affiliated Study Group program. Many parents and lay practitioners got their start in homeopathy when they joined or started their own ASGs. Homeopathy was growing like a weed — thanks to Joe!
I first met Joe at the NCH Summer School in 1991. Although soft-spoken during the school day, he went to town on his banjo in the evening hours. Joe on banjo and Julian Winston on pedal steel guitar spearheaded those musical evenings!
Homeopathy, old-time music, sheep-raising, and Christmas tree farming were just a few of Joe’s interests. When Joe discovered that a homeopathic pharmacy, founded in 1873 in Washington, DC, was destined to close, he began a campaign to save the historic institution. He convinced the pharmacist owner that he was willing and able to do the work needed to keep the pharmacy and its memorabilia alive. After a year-long apprenticeship with the retiring owner, Joe and his wife, Linda, completed the purchase and set about reorganizing and expanding the business. Washington Homeopathic Pharmacy became Washington Homeopathic Products, since Joe was not a registered pharmacist. He never looked back. Under Joe’s leadership, WHP grew exponentially and currently manufactures over 1,700 remedies, employs over 38 people and has over 70,000 customers spread out over more than 20 countries. In 2007, Joe earned the West Virginia Small Businessperson of the Year award and in 2009 was invited to Washington, DC, to meet President Obama along with other state awardees.
Joe’s passion for homeopathy was evident in the many years he served on the boards of the National Center for Homeopathy (NCH) and Homeopaths Without Borders (HWB), and the several humanitarian missions where he participated on behalf of HWB, including visits to Cuba, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.*
By 2007, Joe was serving on the board of Homeopaths Without Borders. At this time, he was invited to the Dominican Republic by a doctor who wanted Joe to teach him how to make homeopathic remedies. Dr Kahn had studied homeopathy but had neither access to remedies nor the funding to travel to the USA on a regular basis. Joe brought a mortar and pestle with him, used an available microwave oven to sterilize it and visited a number of shops to “buy what we needed to sustain production . . . which was fairly easy compared to our problems in Cuba where it had been virtually impossible to gather most items.” The shopping list included alcohol, pipettes, ten milliliter vials, lactose and label paper. Joe wrote of that trip, “On the third evening Dr Kahn, his wife and two sons made Sepia 29c and 30c from tincture.” By the time of Joe’s departure, Dr Kahn felt confident that with the tinctures Joe had brought from home, he had the makings of thousands of remedy doses and would be able to continue treating his patients.
Joe remained active on the board of Homeopaths Without Borders, serving as Treasurer and then President. His business acumen, coupled with his love of homeopathy, kept everyone’s feet on the ground, even as HWB strove to expand its focus to grow a homeopathic profession in Haiti.
At this year’s Joint American Homeopathic Conference, the National Center for Homeopathy honored Joe with the 2016 Julian Winston Service Award. This award is given annually to a person who has contributed substantially to homeopathy and the NCH in a voluntary capacity.
As others have said, Joe was a man of few words. However, when he did speak, the gleam in his eyes and his dry, soft-spoken humor coupled with his wisdom made all of us perk up our ears; he gave us the inspiration and encouragement we needed to meet the challenges of the day.
* To read Joe Lillard’s field report on his trip to the Dominican Republic, go to www.hwbna.org/dominican-republic.html
Suzanne J. Smith, CCH, is a graduate of the New England School of Homeopathy. She serves on the Homeopaths Without Borders board as Treasurer, and has a practice in Hebron, NH. Suzanne is also a fourth-term legislator in the New Hampshire House of Representatives.
The North American Society of Homeopaths (NASH) is dedicated to promoting, representing, and serving as the voice of all PROFESSIONAL homeopaths in North America. NASH aims to develop and uphold the highest level of excellence in homeopathic practice while enhancing the role of the homeopathic profession as an integral part of health care delivery. For more information about NASH, please visit their website: https://homeopathy.org/.